August 21, 2009

CAIR formulates media strategy on Rifqa Bary

A Florida judge will determine whether Islam-to-Christianity convert Rifqa Bary will be returned to Ohio this afternoon at 3:15pm EDT. As I reported yesterday, the extremism of the Central Ohio mosque her parents attend, the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, has become a central issue in the dispute.

But a source who was inside a secret strategy meeting conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) earlier this week has conveyed the strategy that the media's favorite Islamist group has devised to respond to the ongoing public relations crisis. According to my source who attended the strategy session, CAIR officials handed out copies of this Orlando Sentinel article and want supporters to push the meme that Christians have brainwashed and abducted this gullible teenage girl. They have also instructed supporters to circulate rumors that Rifqa had been carousing with infidel boys and engaged in acts of immorality. This CAIR strategy takes the focus off the near-universal Islamic legal precepts and Quranic injunctions that demand death for apostates and impugns the character of the innocent girl at the center of this controversy who appears to be in genuine fear for her life if she is returned to her parents.

As soon as we hear the Florida court's decision, we'll let you know. Officials at Ohio DFS have already said publicly that they intend to reunify the family if she is returned to the state.